Pro-Gun Lawmakers Are Open to Limits on Size of Magazines

Senator Chris Murphy spoke in front of a display of assault weapons during a news conference in January.Credit
Alex Wong/Getty Images

WASHINGTON — Senator Christopher S. Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, is haunted by many things that emerged from the investigation of the December mass shooting at a Newtown elementary school. Among them is the nagging question of what prompted the gunman, Adam Lanza, to put down his rifle after killing 20 children and pick up the pistol he used to end his own life.

“We do know that historically in these instances, amateurs have trouble switching magazines,” Mr. Murphy said, referring to the high-capacity ammunition feeding device used by Mr. Lanza to shoot scores of bullets in seconds. “I believe, and many of the parents there believe, that if Lanza had to switch cartridges nine times versus two times there would likely still be little boys and girls alive in Newtown today.”

It is that conviction that has helped put fresh scrutiny on the size of magazines as Congress debates new gun laws.

While influential lawmakers in both parties view a proposed ban on assault weapons as politically toxic, lawmakers seem increasingly open to a ban on high-capacity magazines, like the 15- and 30-round devices that have been used in shooting rampages from Aurora, Colo., to Tucson, where Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head, to Newtown.

Constitutional lawyers, including many conservatives, generally believe that limiting magazine size falls well within the boundaries of recent Supreme Court decisions on gun rights, and evidence suggests that a ban on large magazines would have reduced the number of those killed in mass shootings.

A growing number of lawmakers say they see a distinct difference between limits on magazine sizes, which they would support, and an assault weapons ban, which they would not. “I see them as separate,” said Senator Angus King Jr., independent of Maine. “It’s the difference between appearance and functionality. High-capacity magazines have contributed to a lot of these tragedies.”

Even Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader who has long stood with the National Rifle Association and remains firmly against an assault weapons ban, has shown receptiveness to a magazine size limit for civilian gun owners. “I think it is something we ought to discuss,” he said.

But the issue also gives pause to many lawmakers, particularly Senate Democrats up for re-election in states that generally support gun rights. They seem torn over whether a restriction on ammunition erodes the rights of law-abiding gun owners, as its opponents insist, or is merely a mild annoyance for those owners in the name of public safety.

“I’m ready to step off the status quo on guns,” said Senator Mark R. Warner, Democrat of Virginia. “But I’ve got to work this one through in my mind.”

In a New York Times/CBS News poll last month of 1,110 adults nationwide, 63 percent of respondents said they would favor a ban on high-capacity magazines, while 34 percent opposed the idea. The N.R.A. has repeatedly and staunchly opposed a ban, arguing that it would have no effect on gun violence and that it would leave such equipment in the hands of criminals alone.

In a 2004 report for the National Institute of Justice that studied the impact of the 1994 assault weapons ban (which expired in 2004), the authors found that high-capacity magazines were used in crimes much more often than assault weapons were. They said that guns equipped with those magazines tended to account for a higher share of guns used in the killing of police officers and in mass public shootings, though those are a small percentage of overall gun deaths.

Many gun experts and lawmakers believe the two areas ripe for legislative consensus are a bill that would make background checks for gun buyers nearly universal, and a measure that would create a federal statute against straw purchasing, which would give prosecutors better tools to go after people who buy guns that they sell or give to others to commit crimes.

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“If you prioritize things in terms of their value and likelihood of them getting passed,” said James Pasco, the executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police, “I don’t think there is anyone who will tell you that background checks aren’t the most important thing to get done.” Law enforcement officials say that combining background checks and straw purchasing penalties would do much to reduce the criminal use of guns.

But many lawmakers, gun violence experts and victims argue that large-capacity magazines, which gun rights advocates say are convenient for target shooting, increase carnage in shootings. President Obama has called for a maximum magazine capacity of 10 rounds. The police have said that Adam Lanza had a 30-round magazine on his semiautomatic rifle in Newtown.

Mark E. Kelly, Ms. Giffords’s husband, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in January that Christina Taylor Green, a 9-year-old girl killed in the Tucson shooting, was shot with the 13th bullet in the assailant’s gun. “I am 100 percent sure these magazines have an effect on the number of people killed,” Mr. Kelly said in a later interview.

Such magazines “are so easy to see as a menace to our society,” said Senator Frank R. Lautenberg, Democrat of New Jersey, who is sponsoring legislation that seeks to ban the sale of magazines of more than 10 rounds.

But gun experts say that standard may be unrealistic, because many handguns are designed to carry more than 10 rounds.

“We have to consider the millions of weapons out there that will be rendered useless,” said Robert A. Levy, a lawyer who was a principal architect of the victorious strategy in the 2008 Supreme Court decision that upheld the rights of residents in the District of Columbia to bear arms, a landmark case for gun rights. Mr. Levy supports a ban on magazines with over 20 rounds, which he said “would rule out very few weapons.”

As interviews with several lawmakers seemed to underscore, a vote to regulate high-capacity magazines would have to be separate from a bill to renew the assault weapons ban to stand a chance of passage. (Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, has offered a bill that does both.)

“There is general agreement that when we went after the cosmetic features of the guns, we didn’t pay sufficient attention to magazine capacity,” said Garen J. Wintemute, the director of the violence prevention research program at the University of California, Davis, referring to the 1994 ban. “Conceptually it has the advantage that you wouldn’t be taking anyone’s guns away. This is a reasonable price to pay for the benefit to public safety.”

Senator Mark Pryor, Democrat of Arkansas, shared the view of many conservative Democrats that each piece of gun legislation must be considered separately. “I’m not going to vote for Feinstein’s bill,” he said. “Beyond that I just want to wait and see what we have.”

In another sign of the growing focus on gun magazines, Colorado’s House of Representatives on Monday narrowly passed a measure that would limit magazines to 15 rounds. Its backers in the Democrat-controlled chamber cited the shootings in Newtown and at an Aurora movie theater in July.

A version of this article appears in print on February 19, 2013, on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Pro-Gun Voices in Congress Are Open to Bullet Capacity Limits. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe